I finally got around to watching the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates videos at the 2007 D Conference that I mentioned last week. There was something very interesting that Steve Jobs said worth noting about passion, and more specifically, about why those without it fail —

People say you have passion for what you’re doing and it’s totally true. And the reason is because it’s so hard, that if you don’t, any rationale person would give up. It’s really hard. And you have to do it over a sustained period of time. If you don’t love it, you’re not having fun doing it, you don’t really love it, you’re going to give up. And that’s what happens to most people actually. If you really look at the ones that ended up successful in the eyes of society and the ones that didn’t, often times the ones that are successful love what they did so they can persevere when it got really tough. And the ones that didn’t love it, quit. Cause they’re sane. Who would want to put up with this stuff if you don’t love it? So, it’s a lot of hard work and a lot of worrying, constantly. If you don’t love it, you’re going to fail. So you gotta love it and you have to have passionate. And I think that’s the higher order bit.

I wish more people would figure this out. So many people go their whole lives without finding out what they are really passionate about. Find what you’re passionate about and do it.